Gerald Durrell - Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons

‘There you are,’ panted John, as we slipped and slithered over Round Island’s back. ‘This little chap would have been helpless against the big Telfairs’s, and it would have just made a nice meal for one of them too.’

That night, it not only rained heavily but the wind blew so hard that we were in danger of losing the tent altogether. It was a most uncomfortable night, and we were glad when the dawn came. We did our normal, routine hunt through the Latanias and returned at eleven o’clock. The sea had become considerably rougher and the sky was clouded over. The wind was coming in sudden vehement gusts, and it looked as if we were in for more rain before the day was out. During the course of lunch, I happened to stick my head outside the tent when I saw, to my astonishment, the good ship Sphyrna gallantly ploughing her way towards us, making heavy weather, for the sea was now quite rough. We speculated on what curious mission she could be involved in such inclement weather; then it gradually became obvious that she was heading for Round Island. We wondered what vital supplies Wahab could be sending us. It never occurred to us that it might be the weather itself that was the reason for the boat’s hasty visit. When she got close to the landing rock and had put her anchor down, the captain hailed us.

‘Cyclone,’ he shouted. ‘Force two warning in Mauritius. I’ve come to take you back, you must hurry.’

The idea of being marooned for an indeterminate period on Round Island while it underwent a cyclone of whatever magnitude was so unappealing that we hardly needed the captain’s exhortation to hurry. Never was a camp broken and packed with such speed. Getting everything into the boat and then from the boat into the Sphyrna was an extremely hazardous experience, but eventually we, our gear and our two precious snakes were being buffeted and tossed by the waves on our way to Mauritius.

The cyclone warning lasted for a week — a week of oppressive weather, rain and rough seas. To cap it all, I had started to feel unwell on Round Island and this now developed into one of those amoeboid infections, which are so irritating and debilitating. It seemed as though our chance of returning to the island to get the required number of snakes for our breeding programme was non-existent; and we had not even collected the other lizard we needed. This meant that we would have to leave the snakes with Wahab to be taken back to Round Island and released. They were far too rare to risk making a mistake with, and the youngster could not be sexed with certainty with the facilities we had in Mauritius. It would be criminal to take them back to Jersey only to find that both snakes were the same sex. I discussed this at length with Wahab, and he said that the long range forecast was that the cyclone was going to miss us after all, and we were moving into a period of smooth weather. Would it not be possible for you to stay a little longer?’

I had, to my intense annoyance, since it had taken over seven years to arrange, just had to cancel a trip to Assam, which I was to have undertaken immediately on my return to Jersey, since the doctors in Mauritius advised against it. This gave me a little lee-way but even if we stayed, I decided, I was feeling too lousy to undertake the boat trip and the subsequent humping of heavy equipment round the island.

‘Could we,’ I asked, hopefully, ‘get the Government helicopter? First, it would make the whole journey there and back infinitely easier and, secondly, I have always longed to do a trip in a helicopter.’

Wahab pursed his lips and said it would be difficult, but he would try.

A few days later, with an air of smug satisfaction, he phoned me up to say that the Prime Minister had given permission for us to have the helicopter. We could go as soon as the weather was right. For several days, we had to hang about while two cyclones, one with the endearing name of ‘Fifi’, whirled about the Indian Ocean, making up their minds whether or not to pay Mauritius a visit. To our great relief, they decided not to, and the weather forecast being propitious, we got the all-clear to embark on the following Monday. As it coincided with a series of public holidays, Wahab decided to join us and bring with him a stalwart volunteer from the Forestry Department to help us in our task.

We were to pick up the helicopter in Port Louis and thence to fly to a football field in the north of the island, where the lorry, with our supplies, would meet us. From there, it was only a quarter of an hour’s flight to Round Island. We duly assembled at the Police Barracks in Port Louis and, with much solemnity, the helicopter was wheeled out and opened up like a bubble car. We clambered in. Wahab and John sat behind, while I was in front with the jovial Indian pilot and his co-pilot. It was, I decided, rather like being in a goldfish bowl and, having no head for heights, I wondered what it was going to feel like when we took off.

‘My God, what a hot today,’ said the pilot, fastening his seat belt and giving a fair imitation of Peter Sellers. What a bloody hot.’

‘It will be hotter on Round Island,’ I said.

'Yes, my God,’ said the pilot, ‘there you will be roasting. What a hot.’

The propeller whirled round faster and faster, and suddenly we rose vertically like a lift, remained stationary for a moment and then zoomed off seventy feet above the roofs of Port Louis. The sensation was incredible; one realised, much more vividly even than in a small plane, what it was like to be a hawk or dragonfly, to be able to rise and descend vertically, to hover and swoop. As we sped one hundred feet above the squares of sugar cane, each with its central pile of huge, brown rocks that had been ploughed up, one had the impression that one was flying over a vast, green chess board, covered with monstrous elephant droppings. Along the road, the Flamboyant trees glowed like heaps of live coals, and the roads themselves were dotted, like an Impressionist painting, with little specks of colour, which were the women, in their multi-coloured saris, going to market.

Presently we banked steeply — a not altogether pleasant sensation in a goldfish bowl, for you felt you were bound to crash through the glass and fall out — and came in to land on the football pitch, as lightly as a dandelion clock. Here, the lorry, piled high with our tent, foodstuffs and sixteen huge jerry cans of water, was waiting for us, accompanied by Wahab’s side-kick from the Forestry Department, a young man called Zozo. He was a slender youth of Asian descent, with a wide and engaging grin, and a nose so retrousse that facing him was like looking up the barrels of a shotgun. His clothes were khaki drill, and he was wearing a huge pair of sunglasses and a large khaki solar topee — Forestry Department issue — of the type that used to be favoured by Stanley and Livingstone. He seemed an enchanting young man, terribly excited at the adventure. He confided to me that not only had he never left Mauritius before, but that he had never flown before, still less flown in a helicopter. To have three such extraordinary things happen in one day rendered him almost speechless.

We loaded our stuff into the helicopter, which had to make two trips because of the weight of the water, and took off. We swept low over the goalposts and the crowd of children, assembled to watch us, scattered and ran, laughing and screaming. Then

we roared up over the shaggy-headed palms and zoomed out over the emerald waters of the lagoon, over the foam flower bed of the reef, and then across the deep blue waters towards Round Island, that crouched, like a desiccated green and brown tortoise, on the horizon, fourteen miles away.